


open heart, open heart

by adeleblaircassiedanser



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grey's Anatomy Fusion, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Christmas Presents, Domestic, Friends With Benefits, Getting Back Together, M/M, Miscommunication, Perfectionism, Post-Break Up, Selfishness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 12:33:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17244278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adeleblaircassiedanser/pseuds/adeleblaircassiedanser
Summary: Surgeons aren’t known to be warm and cuddly. They’re arrogant, impatient, mean as often as not. You would think they don’t have friends. Who could stand them? But surgeons are like a bad cold, nasty but persistent. Surgeons…nasty, aggressive, unstoppable. Just the kind of people you want on your side when you’re really screwed.…Practicing medicine doesn’t lend itself well to the making of friends. Maybe because life and mortality are in our faces all the time. Maybe because in staring down death, everyday we’re forced to know that every minute is borrowed time, and each person we let ourselves care about is just one more loss somewhere down the line. For this reason, I know some doctors who just don’t bother making friends at all. But the rest of us, we make it our job to move that line, to push each loss as far away as we can.- Grey's Anatomy, 5x17





	open heart, open heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluenorth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluenorth/gifts).



> Story title from the Shakira song "Illegal"- the rest of the lyrics don't really fit but oh well. I listened mostly to the GA soundtrack for seasons 5-6. This is an AU, because you said you liked AUs, so I hope that you like it lol. Warnings for mentions of bad things happening off screen to OCs (it's a hospital), and a Connor who- well if you know Grey's at all, I sort of fused him with Cristina Yang. He's the best and I love him but he's not exactly snuggly here. Slight Scrooge energy, so fair warning lol. Very much inspired by that pic of Leon holding the baby at their hospital visit.

Connor’s never been a romantic person; he has other strengths, other priorities. He was a good student in high school, finished his undergrad early, and went on to graduate at the top of his class from medical school. He’d known he wanted to be a surgeon basically since he was old enough to ask who the _smartest_ doctors were. Now, as a surgical resident, he’s actually getting to cut occasionally. Every day he gets to work on real cases where real patients get cured or die. 

Of course, Connor has tried dating- or at least, he’s tried sex, and he’s enjoyed it. He’s comfortable with the fact that he’s roughly equally attracted to… well, given that he’s on the wrong side of 25 now it’s probably appropriate to say ‘men’ and ‘women’. His dating experiences, meanwhile, are better explained as him sort of falling into or getting roped into situations. Often he gets uncomfortable and quiet and finds himself going along with something until he can figure out how to extricate himself. His most sustained attempt at a romantic relationship had begun his senior year of college and fizzled out as he started medical school and she got sick of him constantly cancelling on her so he could study. Connor was a little sad- Olivia was pretty and kind and funny- but that was nothing compared to how he would have felt if his class ranking had slipped because he was slacking to go on dates and couple’s weekends at the apple orchard, or whatever it was she wanted. 

Connor had sort of tabled the concept of a love life after that, until he met Dr. Leon Draisaitl during their intern year. Even with everyone dressed in identical blue scrubs every day, Leon stood out to him. He was handsome, to name one obvious point; clean cut and chiseled. He looked like an actor who would play a surgeon on TV. As their intern year went on, Connor got to know him; found out he was from Germany, that he was almost as smart and competent as Connor himself, and that he was serious about nearly everything. He was serious about medicine, just like Connor was; he didn’t find Connor’s single-mindedness boring or odd. He didn’t fake smile as much as the Americans and Canadians did, and Connor found himself feeling fiercely proud on the occasions when he would pull off something somewhat impressive and Leon would grin and congratulate him for his good work. 

-

The first kiss in the parking deck took Connor totally by surprise. He hadn’t really let himself think about what kind of people Leon was into, and it had never come up in conversation, but it didn’t really make a lot of sense to Connor that he would make the cut. Connor was smart, and he had good hands. But he didn’t shave on any regular schedule, and he paid less than twenty dollars for his haircuts (medical school loans were no joke, and anyway no one was looking at his hair). His lack of interest in personal style was now masked by the uniform thing, so he figured maybe that was helping him out, but out of their class he was definitely not the most logical or desirable option. As he’d been trying to analyze this unexpected outcome, Leon had pulled back. Connor had looked down at his lips, which were very shiny and pink. “Stop thinking,” Leon had said. 

“I only care about surgery,” Connor had warned. “I’m a really bad boyfriend.”

“Who said I want a boyfriend,” Leon had pointed out, smirking a little. “Do you like blowjobs?”

-

The- arrangement, or whatever you want to call it- had survived the end of their intern year and into the beginning of their residency. It was nice- Connor had made friends with other doctors in their class, of course, but Leon was the one he liked the most. A big part of that, of course, was the lure of sex in the on call room; often they’d rush, not even undressing all the way in case one of their pagers went off before they could finish. They got some knowing looks from their classmates, but Connor wasn’t embarrassed by them; he was proud. It felt like Leon saw him the way he wanted to see himself; none of the things that Connor didn’t care about mattered to him, either. It was fun to fuck someone who respected you because they understood what you did, what you were about. Leon never expected him to change. 

The first time Connor was in the OR for the loss of a patient- he was a first year, he’d really just been there to hold the clamp and observe, but still- it had felt big. Big- momentous- and really, really shitty. Leon hadn’t made him talk about it. He had just nodded in understanding and taken him home to his apartment around the corner and fucked him so he didn’t have to think. They didn’t usually bother with all of that, being rushed and sleep deprived most of the time, but Leon had made it good, opening him neither too quickly nor too slowly and using his mouth to get Connor hard while his fingers stretched him. It was really good sex, every time from the beginning. 

-

By the time their second year of residency rolled around, they were well entrenched in a routine. One day, though, Connor had opened Leon’s pantry and seen his favorite cereal on the shelf and suddenly realized that he’d slept over the past three nights in a row- just because Leon lived closer to the hospital, right? The next month, when Connor’s birthday rolled around, Leon had brought him a cupcake from the cafeteria and a key to his place. Connor had felt unsettled. Leon seemed to be gravitating towards a pediatrics specialty, taking another rotation in the department, pinning cartoon characters to his scrubs and smiling indiscriminately. It made Connor feel like he didn’t know him. For himself, he was still torn between specializing in neuro or cardiothoracic, unable to decide which would provide the biggest challenge, the biggest rush when he got it right. He needed to settle on one soon if he wanted to really excel, to have a chance of becoming chief resident down the line. He started working more hours, staying at the hospital even when he wasn’t on call, just in case there was an extra surgery he could scrub in on overnight. One day in March, Leon had confronted him in the hallway. 

“Is everything okay?” he’d said, and there was a tiny giraffe in his chest pocket. Connor had just spent seven hours in the OR after a twelve hour shift. 

“Yes?” he said blankly. 

“You haven’t been texting back,” Leon said. 

“I was in a surgery,” Connor said, a little annoyed. “We’re surgical residents? My phone is off. Or dead, or whatever.”

“You’ve been in surgery for three days straight?” Leon asked.

“Yeah, I’m actually trying to log some hours so I can improve,” Connor said. “Maybe not as fun as babysitting, but it’s important to me.” 

As the words rolled out of his mouth, he realized they had sounded a bit more dickish than he had intended. Leon wasn’t a slacker by any means. It seemed like it was going to be okay, though, because Leon wasn’t frowning or snapping back, just looking at him.

“I don’t know if you know this,” Leon had said, “but you’re important to me. Obviously surgery is why we’re here, and everything, but we’re still allowed to have lives outside that. A lot of the attendings are married.”

“ _Married_?” Connor said incredulously. “What does that- we have sex, sometimes. When we’re free, and I’m not free much right now. I told you from the beginning, I’m not a good boyfriend. I care about being the best surgeon-” he stopped short of saying ‘in the world’, because those things began to be considered childish and fanciful to wish for at their age. “I want to be the best I can be, and that’s always going to be my priority. I don’t think it makes sense to keep doing- whatever we were doing, if you were expecting something else from me. I don’t change. I’ve been the same person since I was six.” 

Leon tilted his head. “Do you want for us to stop being friends, Connor? Or do you just want to stop sleeping over and hooking up in the on call room and using all my shampoo because you’re too absent-minded or lazy to go shopping once in a while.”

Connor was feeling tired and confused. “We can be friends, obviously,” he said. “But the kind of friends where it’s okay if I’m busy for a couple days. And no more sex, I think. I need to focus right now, and I think it’s confusing things.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Leon said. “Thanks for telling me, I guess.” 

“I’m not trying to be a dick,” Connor said. “Like, it’s not that you-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Leon interrupted. “We’re good.”

-

Being friends, Connor learned, meant that Leon would smile at him when they passed in the hallway, and make comfortable small talk if they happened to be on the same attending’s service for the day, and laugh at Connor’s shitty dry humor when they went out with some of the other residents from their year, just to the dive bar across the street from the hospital. But even three or four beers in, relaxed and with his eyes sparkling, Leon wouldn’t give him that look, or touch his thigh, or invite him home. 

Which was fine. Connor didn’t make time to go for drinks often, anyway. 

Sometime in the summer he heard a rumor about Leon and the pretty pediatric nurse with the curly ponytail. He didn’t ask Leon about it, but he thought about it more than he might have expected he would. Nurses have pretty regular schedules. Connor hadn’t ever thought to ask if Leon liked girls too, the way he did, but it wasn’t like that was surprising. It was just… knowledge. Something to adjust to. As time went on, Connor’s began to lean more and more towards a specialty in cardio,, and he started to get the chance to participate more actively in the OR day-to-day. He didn’t _need_ to hear he was the most promising resident the Chief of Cardio had seen in years, but it was nice. Sex with another person was better than jacking off, in Connor’s estimation, but honestly neither compared to the rush of holding a heart in your hand. Connor couldn’t really make himself regret anything. 

-

On Christmas Eve, the general surgeon in the OR calls it a holiday miracle when their patient, a woman in her early thirties, finally gets the directed donation she’s desperately needed for weeks. Connor thinks getting to work on his first multi-organ transplant surgery is about the best present he’s ever gotten. Hours later, when the patient is recovering and waiting to see if her body will accept her new heart and kidney, Connor scrubs out and wanders out onto the skywalk that connects the two wings of the hospital. Ever since his first day here, he’s liked the big windows, even though they basically just look down on parking lots. 

It’s raining today, really nasty weather, not quite cold enough for snow. Connor doesn’t really get homesick anymore, but snow at Christmas is… a nice thing. When it’s reasonable people waking hours again, he needs to remember to call his mom. 

He’s watching the few leaves on the mostly bare, scrawny parking lot trees move in the wind, leaning on the handrail and trying to roll the post-surgery kinks out of his shoulders. He doesn’t hear someone come up behind him. 

“Dr. McDavid,” he hears, and has a moment of panic- had he missed a page, somehow? But he spins around and it’s just Leon. He’s been in peds again today, as usual, and he’s still wearing a stupid Santa hat with his scrubs, and he’s smiling at Connor and holding a little wrapped package. 

“Don’t call me that,” Connor says. “It’s weird as fuck. Dr. Draisaitl.” 

“Okay, Connor,” Leon says, his eyes warm. “I’m glad you’re here, I thought I would have to give this to you after Christmas. You worked the bullshit American holidays- July 4th, Thanksgiving- I figured you’d be headed back to Canada for this one.”

“You don’t go home for Christmas,” Connor points out, a little defensive. 

“The flight’s a little longer,” Leon says. “If I’m only taking a couple days it’s not really worth it. Anyway, I like getting to be there for the patients- Christmas is really for kids, you know.”

“Yeah,” Connor says. “And I’m an adult who would have missed the coolest surgery of my career so far to make small talk with my brother’s boring girlfriend.”

“Fair enough,” Leon says. 

“Why have you been tracking my schedule, by the way?” Connor asks, running a hand through his hair. “And why did you get me a present?”

Leon shrugs and looks away. “Because I wanted to. Why not?”

“You didn’t get me one last year,” Connor points out. “When we were friends, and actually…”

“Fucking,” Leon finishes helpfully. 

“Yeah,” Connor says. “And I obviously didn’t get you anything, so now I’m like, the dick.”

“I wasn’t expecting anything,” Leon says. “It’s not a big deal. Open it.” 

Connor takes it grudgingly and rips off the paper. Inside the box is a packet of hair ties like his girlfriend used to leave on his bathroom counter in college, and underneath them a folded piece of cloth with some kind of pattern he can’t make out without taking it out. He holds up the hair ties first and tilts his head at Leon. 

“You basically haven’t cut your hair since we broke up,” Leon explains. 

“We were never together,” Connor says. 

“It looks good,” Leon continues, ignoring him. “Soon it’s going to be too long to wear it down in surgery, even with the scrub cap. I know you like practical things.”

Leon’s not wrong. It’s just strange to think about him- what, noticing Connor’s hair? Liking it? Thinking about it?

Connor lifts out the scrub cap. It has the silhouettes of faceless skaters holding hockey sticks all over it. 

“I know,” Leon says, his voice faux-conciliatory. “What if someone finds out you have a hobby? What if they start a conversation?”

“What happened to that nurse,” Connor says without really thinking it through. 

Leon looks at him blankly. 

“I mean, are you still with her,” Connor says, because he’s already embarrassed himself and he wants to know. 

“Oh, Jessie? No, she’s not- it’s not like that. She’s a friend.”

“Like me,” Connor says, and he’s not sure he likes whatever his voice is doing. 

“No,” Leon says, and pauses. “Not really like you at all, no. Can I- can I tell you my favorite memory of you?”

“Thanks,” Connor says, “for the presents. I would have gotten you something if I knew we were doing that, but you didn’t-”

“I told you it’s okay,” Leon says. “It’s not a long story, okay, and then you’re free. I mean, I’ll leave you alone. It was- after I gave you the key, so you let yourself in and you’d had a long shift, and we got naked and everything, you put on the condom and got on top of me, and then you fell asleep.”

“No I didn’t,” Connor says, face going painfully red. “What? That never happened.” 

Leon’s grinning. “It’s okay. You were exhausted. I liked it, so I didn’t make a big deal about it. I put the covers over you and you got a good night’s sleep and did more kickass surgeries the next day, probably.”

“That’s your _favorite memory?_ ” Connor says incredulously. 

“Yeah,” Leon says. “Because you- forgive me for being all rainbows and puppies pediatric resident but. You came home to me. You felt safe with me. You needed rest and you trusted me enough to rest with me. I know you don’t let people in easily. I just miss that, and I hope you’re happy and that you find that again with someone, when you’re ready.”

“What about you?”

“I’m okay,” Leon says. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me. I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. Good night, Connor.”

“No!” Connor says, and Leon looks back at him, surprised. “Sorry. I just- that’s not what I meant. I mean- what if I want that again with you.”

Leon looks a little shell-shocked. 

“I like being friends with you,” Connor says. “I mean- no. I like you, period. And I am going to be really busy for the foreseeable future. But legally and biologically I do have to sleep sometimes. And I slept better with you. So maybe we can figure something out? If you haven’t moved on with some nurse.” 

“Fuck you,” Leon says, and takes a step closer. “You’re such a dick. Just because you’re a genius doesn’t mean you can be a dick to people.”

“I can be nice to you,” Connor says. “Not works-with-sick-kids nice, but I can be nice to you. And next year I’ll get you like five presents, so we’ll be even.”

“You really think we’ll make it a year?” Leon asks. They’re almost the same height, but the closer he steps the more obvious it is that Leon’s an inch or so taller. Connor wonders whether it’s strange to like that. He tips his chin up a little to kiss Leon’s pink mouth. 

“Well, your birthday’s in October,” Connor says, smirking. ”Let’s shoot for that.” 

**Author's Note:**

> That's it! Hope you enjoyed. It wasn't easy to write but I did have a good time and I liked picturing this version of Connor and how he would be different from canon. Will post contact info after reveals if anyone wants to talk about this. Happy New Year!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] open heart, open heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18454955) by [LittleRedRobinHood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRedRobinHood/pseuds/LittleRedRobinHood)




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